Speaker 2
I would take off UFC because I love playoff baseball. It is so intense. It is every pitch, and it's the same context we're just talking about. During the season, I'm not going to watch that many baseball games. I'm going to keep track of what's going on. I'm a stack geek. So I love reading about how teams are performing and how certain players are developing. But I'm not going to watch a mid-season game with the same intensity and the same joy that I'm watching a World Series game. Even the past World Series that was essentially a blowout, that last game was so intense and you couldn't turn it off no matter how late it was going to go. I feel the same way about the NBA playoffs. I would not get rid of anything for the NBA. I love the NBA all year round. I'm going to watch the thunder in the Cavs. And even though nobody knows who any of those players are, I love the game of basketball that they're all playing and the way they pass amongst themselves, I think is amazing. Obviously, I'm not going to get rid of sports betting. That to me has to be number one. Sports betting, you know, betting is the invisible hand influencing the current and future state of sports, I think more than anything else. And so that to me is the umbrella that all of this lives under. The NFL, I wouldn't get rid of a second of the NFL. I cannot live without it. I love it so much. And college football, here's my problem with college football. The games are just too long. I don't need four and a half hours of college football games. And I think they're great. They're fun, but I can't sit for that long. So if it's going to stay, I need to get shorter. The reason the
Speaker 1
NFL is king and so much greater than college football is because it has a commissioner and it's constantly tweaking. It's the same reason UFC is better than boxing. It has a central voice and it's constantly tweaking. Is that college football is like a really good product, poorly run. I mean, essentially the 12 team playoff happened and Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC and the Pac-12 folding and four teams moving into the big 10, all that happened because Fox and ESPN wanted it to happen. That's it. They just got tired of college football wasting so many monetization opportunities that Fox and ESPN said, guys, we're going to take it over. And that's what Dana White said. Boxing, you're ridiculous. I'm going to create something, the Fertitta family and Dana White. And so college football and boxing, which I loved growing up, have just been poorly managed my entire life. And so Dana White and TV networks changed both and for the better. I mean, college football now, like a 12-team playoff, you're like, why aren't we? And it's not even done. They're going to keep tweaking it. But why didn't this happen 25, 30 years ago? It's
Speaker 2
interesting the way you talk about UFC because I know the sport well. I wrote Chuck Liddell's autobiography with him. And I've watched more UFC fights than I can count. I would still take a heavyweight boxing match over UFC with the pomp and circumstance any day, like Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Tyson, Evander.
Speaker 1
I used to be like that. And Dana White, I asked Dana about that because Dana grew up with boxing and so did I, I used to be like that. And I still love a great boxing match, but they're so infrequent now. There's like one every other year. I mean, you got, you know, Logan Paul is like one of the attractions. Hey, let's put Conor McGregor and, and boxing.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's gimmicky now. It's not the, it's not the same thing, but I'm saying historically, if I could have back a, a, a brilliant heavyweight boxer, or if I could even have Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in their prime, I would rather have that than UFC. It's just more interesting to me. I just like it more. I'm not anti-UFC, but if I could have boxing at its height, I would take boxing at its height over UFC at its height. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I used to be like that. I'm not anymore. And I also think, I mean, I'm in the UFC business at the volume. And the one thing I think UFC is so brilliant. They picked a day. It's Saturday night. You know what you're getting. You don't get bad cards. You get either sensational cards or good cards. Boxing was a coin flip, whether you were pissed off at the end of the night for buying the pay-per and selling nothing for three hours. By the way, and then the fight would start an hour and a half late. It was like watching Guns N' Roses going to a concert. They're gonna hit the stage two hours late. Just smoke another bowl and enjoy your night.